Deer hunt linked to healthier Quabbin

Currently, the 58,000-acre Quabbin watershed forest and its white-tailed deer population are both in good shape, according to state naturalists.

But it was not always that way.

More than two decades ago, that ecosystem was seriously out of balance, a threat both to the forest’s deer and other wildlife and to the future of Quabbin as a water supply.

There was too little food for too many deer.

Their constant browsing had effectively prevented the new growth or regeneration needed for a diverse forest serving as a water supply filter.

The impact of browsing deer was most evident on the restricted 12,300 acres of Prescott Peninsula — the high ground reaching south from New Salem that nearly bisects the reservoir.

A healthy watershed forest would have a diverse mix of seedlings, saplings, and young and mature trees. Instead, carpets of ferns stretched as far as the eye could see.

What happened to turn around this environmental disaster?

The idea of a controlled hunt at Quabbin had been broached and debated since the 1980s, but was deemed impractical by some and roundly criticized by animal rights activists.

In December 1990, the state Legislature approved measures to thin the deer herd, and the following year 7,444 hunters applied for the 1,020 permits issued to hunt within 14 square miles in Pelham on the western flank of the reservoir.

Despite protests by animal rights activists and claims of hunter harassment, 575 deer were killed. The next year, the hunting area was expanded to include Prescott Peninsula, and 2,089 hunters killed 724 deer. This year, the total for the hunt in Prescott, New Salem, Hardwick and Pelham was 84 deer. The two-day total for Prescott was 26 deer.

William E. Pula, regional director of the Quabbin and Ware river watersheds, said that within the first six years of the hunt, regeneration of forest was evident across the reservation as a direct result of the markedly decreased deer density.

Where there was once savannah-like habitat on Prescott Peninsula, there is new growth of mixed hardwoods and softwoods, such as white pine.

Mr. Pula described the annual two-day hunt on four of the five zones — Hardwick, Petersham, New Salem, Prescott and Pelham — as “at a maintenance level,” designed to maintain both forest and deer health. Each year one of the zones is given a respite from hunting.

Last week, 390 hunters fanned out over Prescott for two days. There were 412 permits issued for Prescott. Some hunters, for whatever reason, don’t show up. Overall, 1,150 permits were issued for the Quabbin hunt from a pool of 1,267 applicants.

Not every hunter stopping by the deer checking station last Thursday had the trophy that Thomas J. Whitman of Feeding Hills brought in to be recorded: Mr. Whitman said he shot an 11-point buck that weighed 190 pounds.

Mr. Whitman said he’s hunted Quabbin for the past decade and is successful usually every other year.

He said he generally hunts the same place at the southern end of the Prescott.

Last Thursday, Edward M. Lambert Jr., commissioner of the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, toured the Prescott hunting zone with Jonathan Yeo, director of DCR’s Division of Water Supply Protection.

Ken MacKenzie, a DCR wildlife biologist, characterized the deer he has seen this year as “remarkably healthy,” with the average dressed weight of does being 130 pounds, and bucks significantly higher, upward of 180 pounds.

As for the deer hunt, there has been no opposition to the annual hunt since 1994, a couple of years after it was started. In 1991, PETA filed an injunction in federal court in Boston seeking to prevent the hunt. The injunction was denied and after that the opposition sort of fell apart. The DCR regularly responds now to concerns, criticisms, etc., and annually “tweaks” the event to keep hunters interested as well as ensuring that sufficient deer are taken to meet goals for forest regeneration.